Category: Marketing

Building a social media strategy is vital before publishing content on any social platform, and analyzing competitors is another important part of that strategy. According to Ana Gottar even if you are in the same industry, with similar target market, your competitors can have a different perspective on things than you do.By tracking competitors on social media, we get to know the latest trends in industry, and the content they are putting out that their fans and followers respond to.

Few steps to analyse your competition and thus build your strategy to grow on social media

1. Research your Industry environment

The first step towards this would be to analyse what competitors are doing. This may include what type of content is getting shared on social media, which content is working for your competitors? There are some tools to measure that, and BuzzSumo is one of them. For example- a company like Ecostore may be interested in finding what is shared on the chemical free cleaners in past 6 months. Below is the screen shot of content shared on that.

There are other tools like Topsy which can be used for checking out whats being shared. According to Andrianes Piantoan , it is important to know where our competitors are getting traffic from, social is just a small part. It is imperative to look for rankings in terms of SEO. This will give you the information which articles get the most SEO Traffic.

2. Create Alerts

Develop and set up competitor’s alerts by creating custom feeds to keep an eye on competitor’s activities. “TweetDeck” and “Facebook Pages To Watch” can be used for twitter and Facebook monitoring.

B2B marketers can study which platform to watch for and then can plan their strategy. Also, tracking influencers give a better idea about who is talking and sharing competitor’s content and their customers.

3. Implement that information

As now you know what your competitors are doing and your market, figure out where do you fit in this picture? We have got the information, now use this data to improve the performance of your business.

One of the technique you can use is Skyscraper Technique which says find the old content that worked well and mould it to make it even better.

This strategy has done wonders in terms of boosting social media shares and thus increase traffic to the business website overall.

You can also use this information to boost your relation with your competitors , afterall they are the peers from the same industry and you never know you might be able to help each other out. Here are some more reads for tracking your competitors

So do you keep an eye on your competitors on social media? And do you use that information to promote your business? Please leave a comment below if you think you know some better techniques and ideas to perform better on social platforms.

Understanding content marketing can be complex sometimes. It is the art of communicating with your customers and prospects without selling them. But according to Sonia Simone : Content by itself- even terrific content- is just content. It is imperative to understand business and marketing goals to make your content effective.

Content Marketing would be a meaningless exercise without setting business goals. Here are some effective business goals to look out before starting a content marketing strategy.

1 Brand Awareness

It is important to build a strong brand presence in the market place and content marketing is a great vehicle for that as it is organic, authentic and a great way to start engagement with your brand. Fast-casual chain Chipotle Mexican Grill added some spice to its long-running “Food With Integrity” sustainable farming campaign by teaming with Academy Award-winning design firm Moonbot Studios for The Scarecrow, an animated short film and accompanying mobile game created to increase consumer awareness of animal confinement, synthetic growth hormones, toxic pesticides and other fixtures of industrial food production

The content should be compelling so that it can attract links, social media sharing and conversation

2 Find out your prospects pain points

It is important to understand the problems of your buyer personas and how to solve them. Smart content marketing always create space for queries for the target audience to increase the engagement with your brand. National Health Service UK does this by having comprehensive bank of content for almost any ailment on their website.

3 Make your offering appear perfect for your prospects

One of the best strategy to do this is story telling. It is a powerful tool as it shows what it is like to own your product. Hampton Creek has done this very nicely. They started out with their first product, Just Mayo, with no eggs. Company wants to create a world that is kinder to animals and environment.

4 Lead nurturing

One of the important part of inbound marketing is conversion metrics. According to Joe Pulizzi, a lead is someone who is encouraged to the stage that he is ready to give enough information about themselves, that now you have acquiescence to market them. This can be registering for a trial or a newsletter subscription. Use your content accordingly to help your prospects move further in their buying stage.

5 Delight your customers

Building strong relationship with the existing customer can be the the most important pillar in achieving your business goal. Delight your customers in such a way that they become brand evangelists. Michele Linn explains how Tourism Australia aims to make their audience the hero

These are some goals to start with, you can figure out your own goals and map a content strategy to meet those goals. There is some more information by Sarah Goliger on how to measure your content marketing goals. If you have any other information to share please feel free to comment below.

This famous saying “Honesty is the best policy” is still extremely powerful in the 21st century. Honesty is a key factor for a business which deals with health and wellness and especially for its marketing.It is important for marketers to understand the importance of being transparent. This article by Doug Kessler explains some captivating rationales for accepting the shortcomings of a business

I strongly believe in being honest when marketing your business because as a customer i would like to be treated fairly
and has the right to know about the shortcomings of a product or a service.

Here are some ideas of re-modelling your marketing strategy using honesty

1. Don’t afraid to accept your shortcomings

Not every product or service is perfect for everyone. Not even Apple. That is why it is important for marketers to admit
their imperfections. As Don Peppers quoted this as

“if you want to succeed , you will need your customers to see you as reliable, dependable, credible, helpful, respectful,
open, responsive and honest”

Johnson and Johnson accepted their shortcomings and took the initiative by removing some unwanted and harsh chemicals from their baby products. This astounding video by J&J is an excellent example of refining your products or services according to customer needs.

2. Appreciate your competitors

I know it is hard to praise your competitions but we as marketers cannot even ignore them after all we are on the same boat serving similar customers in the similar industry.

When a customer chooses your brand, he wants to feel safe. If you are not the right brand for the job, don’t hesitate to refer them to your competition. You might lose that one particular sale but you have succeeded in gaining a new brand evangelist. Brand evangelists are worth risking a sale.

3. Accept your mistakes

Accepting mistakes don’t make you weak, but it makes you awesome. Even big brands like Dominos pizza didn’t hesitate to accept their mistakes.

Domino’s pizza took customers comments like “Dominos pizza crust is like cardboard” seriously and decided to start over. The company accepted their mistake through ads, made improvements and the results were rewarding. Customers described them as “bold and refreshing”

In conclusion, it may feel scary or anti-marketing but is the best practice for successful marketing.

Don’t forget to read the following links for more interesting facts about sincerity in marketing and some excellent examples